Activity: reflective writing

Week 1 Activity

(to be completed by Monday 28 May)

Throughout the 5 weeks of this course, we hope that you will reflect on your learning and share your reflections with other MOOC participants. For those of you who have selected to be assessed, your reflective writing is one of the three assessed tasks.

What to write

Your reflections are your own and personal to you. Your reflective writing should therefore focus on whatever is most useful to you at this time. However, a successful MOOC relies on open sharing of ideas and resources, so we hope you will share your reflections.

If you are unsure about what to focus on, then you might try the following suggestions. If you have chosen to be assessed, please follow the guidelines below.

We suggest that in this first week you reflect on your overall experience to date as a teacher; what kinds of students have you taught, what have you discovered from the experience, and what have you most enjoyed in your teaching?

Then have a look at the diagram on page 3 of The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in Higher Education 2011 -http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ukpsf/ukpsf.pdf . The diagrams on pages 2 and 3 depict the three dimensions of the Framework - Professional Values, Core Knowledge and Areas of Activity. Within each dimension is a list of points, which teachers in Higher Education should understand and engage with. Choose one of these three dimensions. What are your initial thoughts about the points listed in that dimension? Could you demonstrate understanding of and engagement with any of the points listed?

At the end of Week 5, we will suggest that you draw on your interim reflections and writing to reflect on what you have learned from the course, update your initial reflections in the light of what you have learned on the course and consider what your next steps for continuing professional development might be.

Are there any aspirations, reminders or thoughts you have now as you embark on this MOOC that you might find useful to record in order to have them for later review.

Where and how to share your reflections

The ideal place is in your blog, which many authors and educators find an excellent tool for sharing their reflective writing. If you do not already have a blog, then then there are some tutorials on the Week 0 wiki which will help you to set one up. Don’t forget to tag your blog posts with the tag for this MOOC - #fslt12.

Alternatively, you could post your reflection to the Reflective Practice Moodle wiki page which has been set up for this activity (see Week 1) or complete one of the three templates provided as attachments and upload it to the wiki, or as an attachment to a discussion forum post.

If you have opted to be assessed, then please submit your work according to the instructions that you can find in the Assessment section.

Extending this activity

For assessment purposes we only require evidence of reflective writing in Weeks 1 and 5 of this course. However, you might consider writing and sharing your reflections on a weekly basis. Developing the habit of weekly reflection will support your teaching practice; sharing your reflections will help you to make connections and network with others in similar contexts; and weekly reflections in this MOOC will inform your final reflections at the end of Week 5.

The most distinctive of these very good teachers is that their practice is the result of careful reflection . . . They themselves learn lessons each time they teach, evaluating what they do and using these self-critical evaluations to adjust what they do next time.